Combine specialist Kassie van der Westhuizen (left) and FAR technology manager Chris Smith looking at losses in Waikato maize.
Combine specialist Kassie van der Westhuizen (left) and FAR technology manager Chris Smith looking at losses in Waikato maize.
Chris Smith was thrilled when combine harvester workshops run by the Foundation for Arable Research (FAR) won the Technology Innovation Award at this year’s Primary Industry New Zealand Awards.
The foundation’s technology manager heard about research being carried out by Australia’s Grains Research and Development Corporation and the calculations aroundthe extent of losses from the back of harvesting machines.
“While on the surface it might appear that our arable farmers and their machinery dealers already know everything about successfully running combine harvesters, FAR funded an independent team of experts from Australia and Canada to visit and take a fresh look,” Smith said.
“For the last two seasons, these experts have carried out grower workshops prior to harvest and then returned to visit individual growers on their farms during harvest to check how adjustments are performing in the field.”
There were three pilot FAR pre-harvest workshops in the 2023/24 season, and it was a considerable effort to supply machines of every brand at each location.
Smith said he wondered if people would be interested and initially budgeted for 30 participants at each venue, a budget that had to be pushed out as enrolments grew.
“We ended up with 225 growers attending across the three events, which was fantastic.”
At the end of each workshop, growers filled in a questionnaire and 65 growers expressed interest in post-harvest visits.
“The 2024/25 season pre-harvest workshops attracted around 250 growers, and 116 growers requested post-harvest farm visits.”
The trend towards increased seed dressing losses has become noticeable in the past 10 years with the availability of larger, more automated combine harvesters.
Combine operators are becoming more reliant on electronic controls and readings that may not be accurately calibrated.
Calibrating your combine
A well-attended FAR combine harvester workshop from the 2023/24 season.
Smith said adjustments to combines led to instant harvesting gains and cost savings, including reduced crop losses, faster harvesting speeds, lower diesel consumption, reduced horsepower and better harvest samples.
“One grower shaved 70 hours off his time spent in the field,” he said.
“He roughly budgets $1000 per hour for using his combine, so that is a potential monetary saving of $70,000.
“Another reduced fuel consumption by 30% as well as producing a clean sample.
“Another increased his harvesting capacity in barley from 20 hectares to 30 hectares a day.
“Some farms were already doing well, and it was confirmation for them that they are running their combines efficiently.”
The workshops show the importance of growers measuring and monitoring potential grain and seed losses and fine-tuning settings to mitigate these.
